


the start, a simple touch

by tunemyart



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/F, my working title for this was 'accidental first time fic' so take that as you will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:41:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27783157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunemyart/pseuds/tunemyart
Summary: Gabrielle's ogling. Xena's in less control than she thinks she is.
Relationships: Gabrielle/Xena
Comments: 16
Kudos: 103





	the start, a simple touch

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted this to be funnier and more _whoooops_ than it turned out, but oh well - have vaguely-more-earnest accidental first time fic instead!

Gabrielle was staring when Xena emerged from the lake, dripping and naked. She was still staring when Xena wrung out her hair, and when Xena dried herself off with a linen. 

Amused, and ego duly boosted, Xena quietly went about her business and did her best not to spook her into embarrassment. Gabrielle ogling naked and non-naked Xena alike wasn't anything new, not that Xena would ever tell her just how long she'd been aware of that. And not that Xena had ever minded being ogled, especially by anyone she desired. That Gabrielle had newly, quietly slipped into this category was just an added thrill, sweeter than Xena could ever have thought to expect.

Still nude, but now drier, Xena turned around with a small smile playing on her lips. “You can touch,” she said, in case it was explicit permission she was waiting for.

Gabrielle was fresh from her own bath, and had managed to reclothe herself in the time Xena had spent luxuriating in the comparatively warmer waters of the lake they'd set up camp beside. Her eyes snapped up to meet her gaze, and she smiled guiltily. “That obvious, huh?” she asked. 

But Xena would say this much for her - she didn’t look away in an attempt to hide, and she didn’t try to deny what she’d obviously been up to.

“I don’t mind,” Xena assured her, standing up straight - all the better to be ogled - and offering her own lazy smile. 

It seemed explicit permission was exactly what she’d been waiting for. Gabrielle got to her feet, damp and fresh, an intoxicating combination of anticipation and determination and self-consciousness moving across her face like water as she made her way towards where Xena was waiting patiently. Her gaze dropped again, this time more overtly.

And well, Xena _had_ invited. She could feel her nipples pebbling from the appreciative scrutiny and her own anticipation alone.

“Actually,” Gabrielle began, before hesitating again. Her gaze darted up to Xena’s face, a half smile cutting through her shyness.

“What?” Xena encouraged her. “I promise, you’re not going to shock me.” _And I can almost guarantee I’m gonna like it._

Gabrielle was biting her lip, which was nearly revelation and confirmation enough of what her urge had been. “I actually wanted to - “ were her only words before suddenly leaning in, cupping Xena’s breast, and simply doing it. 

And - Xena wasn’t shocked, no. But it didn’t mean she could quite help her gasp of surprise at the inquisitive, exploratory drag of Gabrielle’s tongue across nipple and areola. 

“Okay?” 

It prompted a laugh from Xena, high and breathy; but she quickly sobered when she caught sight of the earnestness in Gabrielle’s expression. 

“More than okay,” she reassured her. 

“It’s not - I don’t know. Weird, or anything?”

“Definitely not weird,” Xena said. “‘Weird’ doesn’t matter so much anyway, not as long as you like it and I like it.”

“And you promise you’ll tell me if you don’t?” Gabrielle said, her gaze very intent. So serious. Xena couldn’t help her smile.

“As long as you tell me the same,” she said, fondly brushing back Gabrielle’s hair, damp in dark gold tangles around her clear face, brimming with honesty and simple desire. Xena smiled at the sight of it, and the new, constant reminder that desire could be simple at all.

She didn’t bother with the larger truth: that it was far more likely that she would do something outside of Gabrielle’s boundaries than vice versa, especially now, when Xena had good reason to suspect that Gabrielle didn’t really know what her own boundaries were. Xena had her own, sure, but they would be hard for someone like Gabrielle to stumble across.

The moment settled around them with more weight than Xena had intended, but was dispelled by the teasing brush of Gabrielle’s thumb and her wide grin when she succeeded in catching Xena’s almost imperceptible reaction to it. 

“Alright,” she said, smiling. “You’ve got a deal.”

It was a deal Xena was more than happy with, especially as Gabrielle grew bolder, testing weight and curve and texture with increasingly nimble fingers and lips until suddenly, alarmingly, Xena was so sensitive to her touch it felt like she was drawing something out of her that was more than simple pleasure from where it was stubbornly lodged just behind her heart. 

In retrospect, she should have known she was in trouble.

She hadn’t meant it to go this far, not right now, but that that thought was stolen by the heat of Gabrielle's kiss and her own new, intoxicating familiarity with it. The thought returned when Gabrielle pulled her forward and pushed her down onto the soft fur of their bedrolls, her hands ravenous in their own quest for intoxicating familiarity with Xena's skin, and again when she straddled Xena’s waist and pressed close, close, and then one more time when she startled, briefly, at the first brush of wiry curls against her own skin. 

But that was enough. “Hang on,” Xena mumbled in half-hearted protest even as Gabrielle recovered herself and dove back in for a new kiss.

Gabrielle immediately drew back. “What?” she asked. Concern was overtaking the dark-eyed intensity of focus that had dominated her expression before, and something about the combination moved Xena to reach up and touch it, finding it real instead of surreal, as real as this moment. Gabrielle watched her steadily in return, waiting for her in all the ways Xena had ever waited for Gabrielle. 

“Nothing,” Xena said. “Never mind.”

“You’re sure?” Gabrielle asked again, doubt beginning to crowd out the other things on her face, which Xena couldn’t allow. 

So she did the only thing that made sense: she tugged her down and rolled onto her side, Gabrielle’s squeak immediately overtaken by her unsteady breaths at their new proximity, and kissed her. “I’m sure,” she murmured against her lips. 

This was so far beyond the long, lazy hours they’d lost in each other’s mouths and against each other’s bodies so far. Xena had loved every moment of learning the way Gabrielle kissed, both pliable and demanding; had loved the yield and meld of learning the way they kissed, together. Even if it had more often than not left her needing to steal away to take care of herself out of Gabrielle’s hearing with Gabrielle’s gasps and breaths still fresh, new, in her ears and against her skin as she’d come. 

She’d have felt worse about it, maybe, if she hadn’t also more often than not returned to find Gabrielle freshly flushed, bright-eyed, chipper, and looking at Xena appraisingly. 

Xena held onto enough of herself to keep herself from demanding, not now, _not yet_ \- but all the same, Gabrielle’s mouth was so warm, her body even warmer, her breath and fingertips scalding, Xena had never felt so impossibly close, so close, so _close -_

Was it the feel of Gabrielle’s now-sure hands palming her breasts and stealing roughly into her hair? The drag of the rough fabric of Gabrielle’s blouse over her still-oversensitized nipples? The thoughtless, momentary, accidental pressure of her leg between Xena’s as she shifted in a bid for better access? Xena would never know, consumed as she was by the unmistakable rush making her body seize and wringing a surprised, guttural moan from some deep place that had been hidden even from her. 

On the whole: as predictably unexpected as all the rest. Xena felt a wild impulse to laugh, her entire body tingling. So much for ‘ _not yet_ ’. 

Xena managed to tamp down on that impulse as she became aware of Gabrielle staring at her, looking more than a little gobsmacked. 

“Did you just - “ Gabrielle said, apparently unable to finish the thought. Disbelief was vying with awe in her expression, though the latter was winning out the more her eyes took in, for the first time, the signs of the aftermath of Xena’s orgasm. It was this more than anything else that loosened the stop on Xena’s laugh, and she let it tumble out.

Ah, well - let Gabrielle learn to count this as one of those signs. Maybe Xena would even learn to do the same.

“Yeah,” Xena confirmed. Her voice was slightly husky, and it was a delight watching Gabrielle’s already wide eyes grow darker in response. Xena didn’t bother apologizing for the speed of it - not that she believed in doing anything so stupid as apologizing for an orgasm anyway, but she would rather dive naked at a beehive than do anything to take away from the way Gabrielle was looking at her now. “Thanks.”

“You’re - you’re welcome,” stammered Gabrielle, and a smile broke out on her face. “Wow. _Wow._ ”

Xena laughed again, and couldn’t even bring herself to be surprised when it was even easier than the last time. “I’m glad you’re so pleased with yourself.” 

“I’m not!” insisted Gabrielle, but then seemed to catch herself in what was obviously at least a partial lie. “I mean - I _am,_ but I’m more… _wow.”_

Xena was tempted to tease her some more, and would have if it weren’t for just how _moved_ Gabrielle seemed. It was almost as if she were right back to her first days with Xena, staring at her as though she couldn’t quite believe that Xena was real. 

“You’re so beautiful,” she breathed then, and it wasn’t at all like the chatterbox of a young woman who had followed her to Amphipolis. 

Moved herself, Xena reached up again and cupped her cheek. “So are you,” she said. The voiced sentiment made Gabrielle smile shyly, happily, like any other woman in love. Xena had given her that. Her heart caught all over again. 

“So,” she said in an attempt to reclaim some measure of stability, “what do you want to do from here?” 

“Uh… I think I’d really like to do that to you again. But better, maybe.” 

“Well, don’t let me be the one to stop you,” Xena said dryly, and Gabrielle smiled impishly at her approval of the plan. “But I was more wondering how much of that you’d be up for yourself?” 

Gabrielle’s eyes went wide again, like she’d never considered such a thing. “Oh, I’d be up for it,” she assured Xena when she’d recovered herself, her voice studiously calm. 

“Great,” Xena said, equally calm, equally studious, fingers already - finally - at the ties of Gabrielle’s top. She heard Gabrielle’s breath catch as the moment yawned before them with sudden, renewed inevitability; but she was pleased to see that Gabrielle was once again biting her lip in anticipation rather than reluctance, and resisted the urge - for now - to do it for her. 

“In that case,” Xena continued, nimbly pulling it loose and tossing it aside along with all remaining ideas of _‘not yet’,_ eyes fixed on the prize, “maybe I will be the one to stop you after all.”


End file.
